06 jan How artificial intelligence will end our intelligence for good

I decided to have this reflection before I no longer have the capacity to reflect. And if I were you, I would do the same. It’s not an exaggeration to imagine that, in the not-so-distant future, the simple act of thinking might become obsolete. Artificial intelligence (AI), with its promises of convenience and efficiency, is gradually stealing from humans what defines us as a species: the ability to create, learn, face dilemmas, and evolve intellectually through challenges. The very technology that promised to elevate our humanity seems to be sending us back to the caves – at least from a cognitive standpoint.

We are on the fine line between control and surrender. Artificial intelligence, which was designed to serve us, is increasingly taking command of our decisions, our lives. Soon, humans, once dominant, will be forced to submit to machines, incapable of thinking for themselves.

Reverse evolution

Since the beginning of human history, technology has been an essential ally for survival. Each new advancement demanded more from the human brain: learning, creativity, and adaptation. However, AI subverts this dynamic by eliminating intellectual effort. What should be liberating can now be a prison. By delegating to machines the tasks that stimulate our brains, we are reversing the course of our evolution.

Cal Newport advocates the idea that technology should be used intentionally, avoiding its consumption of us. “Disorder is costly, not just for your productivity, but for your soul.”

Improving quality of life (or not)

AI was designed to increase efficiency and solve problems. Can it already make decisions? Sometimes yes. Can it create? Absolutely. It already writes, draws, paints, composes music, and even proposes unprecedented solutions. Moreover, it has expanded creative and collaborative areas such as medical diagnosis, education, and other relevant activities. But as the popular wisdom goes, there’s no such thing as a free lunch. The convenience AI offers eliminates the need for intellectual effort, and with that, the complexity of human thought begins to unravel.

The declining brain

The human brain is like a muscle: it needs to be exercised to remain functional. Solving problems, making decisions, and learning are the abs that keep our synapses active. AI, on the other hand, is a maternal personal trainer that does the work for us, leaving our mental muscles atrophied, unable to lift even the lightest weights. This intellectual convenience, therefore, is a terrible threat to our cognitive fitness.

Creativity in danger

Creativity is an evolutionary behavior that was crucial for our adaptation and survival. But dependence on AI threatens to undermine this process by eliminating error and experimentation – the foundations of creative thinking.

It was necessary to create tools, solve adaptation problems, and constantly innovate to overcome the challenges of a hostile and constantly changing environment. And this depends on effort, errors, and experimentation – processes that AI minimizes or eliminates. Logical and complex reasoning has always been the basis for producing creative ideas, meaning we are undermining the very capacity that brought us here. As Rollo May suggests in The Courage to Create, “Creativity requires the courage to give up certainties.”

External brain and the age of forgetting

Although empirical data show that the use of technology can also boost learning and solving complex problems, our digital tools have functioned as an external brain, storing memories and performing calculations while our own processing capacity is neglected, leading us to a lazy and uninterested mind. When everything is a click away, the effort to remember or learn becomes unnecessary.

For example, learning a new language requires years of study and practice, which strengthens complex neural networks, a practice even suggested for older people to prevent or delay degenerative brain diseases. Now, just use an instant translation app and communication is established. So, why the effort?

Thus, the culture of forgetting arises, where critical thinking is a relic. We are exchanging intellectual effort for convenience, which, in the long run, can lead to the loss of intellectual autonomy.

What science says

Neuroscience raises a clear warning: when the brain is not stimulated, it loses the ability to create new neural connections. And the problem started well before the phenomenon of artificial intelligence. The internet has already proven to be a threat to our cognition. Nicholas Carr, author of The Shallows: What the Internet Is Doing to Our Brains, reinforces this concern by highlighting that “the internet encourages a fast and distracted sampling of small bits of information,” weakening skills like critical thinking and creativity. Carr also warns that intense internet use negatively affects the ability to focus and think deeply. He describes the internet as a “jet-ski that skims the surface of the sea of information.”

According to science, every time we choose technological ease over intellectual effort, we are weakening our synapses and compromising our brain’s plasticity, or neuroplasticity, which is the nervous system’s ability to adapt, shape itself to circumstances, reorganize, and create new neural connections throughout life in response to experiences, learning, or injuries. It is the mechanism that allows the brain to change its structure and function, strengthening or weakening neural networks based on use and received stimuli.

Even though seemingly passive activities can form neural connections, a study published in Nature Reviews Neuroscience points out that excessive use of digital devices is associated with a decrease in working memory capacity and critical thinking.

Cognitive revolution in reverse

Yuval Noah Harari, in his book Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind, highlights cognitive revolutions as crucial moments in human history. He argues that about 70,000 years ago, the Cognitive Revolution allowed Homo sapiens to develop unique language and imagination skills. These capabilities enabled the creation of shared narratives, such as myths, religions, and abstract concepts, fundamental for large-scale cooperation.

Based on Harari’s thinking, if we continue down this path, the loss of our cognitive abilities could lead us to a mental regression, similar to the prehistoric era, in a true reverse cognitive revolution. Reverse evolution will place us in a state of passive survival, dependent on machines to make even the simplest decisions.

Digital hedonism: the golden cage

The more we use AI for simple tasks, the less we seek solutions on our own. The result is a society imprisoned by digital hedonism, where the pursuit of comfort surpasses the need for intellectual evolution. After all, who needs a brain when you have a smartphone?

The desire for comfort has always been a driver of human innovation, but it’s also a poison when it makes us complacent. The more we seek technologies that save us from effort, the more we drift away from the resilience that defined our evolution. We are becoming prisoners of our own comfort zone, a kind of golden cage where creativity and curiosity are sacrificed for convenience. After all, freedom is much more frightening than subjugation.

Comfort zone uber alles

The comfort zone is that irresistible place because it is physiologically sponsored by agents of our reward system, neurotransmitters like dopamine and endorphins. Yes, when we are within our patterns, that is, our comfort zone, we are rewarded with doses of instant pleasure. But as we all know, the opposite also happens. When we stray from our patterns, we reach the discomfort zone, and our brain warns us, also through physiological means, that something is “wrong” and that we should return to what is known and familiar.

Every successful innovation is related to expanding comfort in some way: physical, emotional, financial, status, etc. And this is yet another paradox among many existing in nature: to improve our quality of life, that is, to increase our comfort, we need to abandon the comfort zone, requiring tremendous effort, fiercely fighting against our nature averse to displeasure.

My pleasure

In this society of ephemeral pleasures (bigger and more intense than the current ones), digital leisure will completely replace intellectual effort. Games, social networks, and virtual worlds will be the new refuge for billions of people, while real problems remain unsolved. Homo sapiens, once driven by challenges, will become Homo desocupadus: a species addicted to immediate pleasures, incapable of dealing with reality. Humanity will be marked by apathy and superficiality.

Artificial intelligence won’t need to subjugate us by force. It will control us through convenience, making us slaves to our own appetite for comfort. A kind of Matrix, but with the difference that we won’t even serve as batteries.

Blessed are the dumbs because they will inherit the Earth

We are witnessing the birth of a generation that not only delegates tasks to technology but also outsources its ability to think. As AI offers us unlimited convenience, we face the risk of losing what makes us human. When systems fail – because they will fail – we will face an intellectual blackout. We will be spectators of our own incapacity, without the strength to react.

Tristan Harris, former Google employee and technology ethics activist, discusses in the documentary The Social Dilemma how digital technologies are designed to capture our attention and promote dependency. According to Harris, “If you’re not paying for the product, you are the product.”

When ignorance is a blessing

But let’s not be unfair. A large part of humanity has never truly enjoyed the intellectual autonomy it has at its disposal, greatly facilitating its control and submission. Perhaps for this type of passive personality, the growth of technological dependence doesn’t make much of a difference.

More artificial intelligence, less human intelligence

Artificial intelligence is a binary knife: it can elevate us to new heights or dumb us down completely, depending on how we use it. It is up to us to decide whether we want a future of progress or to outsource our brains, promoting a cognitive return to the caves. Knowing a bit about the human being, we will probably walk, with a smile on our faces, toward the second option, fully surrendering to the pleasures of a meaningless life only to regret it later, thinking “who could have imagined?”. But not with these words, of course. With guttural roars only. Or cave paintings, whatever.

Found this article too pessimistic? Didn’t like the sarcasm? Irony? Nihilism? Well, know that I asked ChatGPT for an opinion and It assured me it’s very good.

References

• Carr, N. (2010). The Shallows: What the Internet Is Doing to Our Brains. W.W. Norton & Company.
• Harari, Y. N. (2015). Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind. L&PM Editores.
• May, R. (1975). The Courage to Create. W.W. Norton & Company.
• Newport, C. (2019). Digital Minimalism: Choosing a Focused Life in a Noisy World. Portfolio.
• Orlowski, J. (Director). (2020). The Social Dilemma [Documentary]. Exposure Labs.
• Nature Reviews Neuroscience. (2021). Digital technology and its impact on cognitive abilities. Nature Publishing Group.